


under the control of a god

by caneeljoy



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Family, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Sad, psychotic flower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 01:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6545452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caneeljoy/pseuds/caneeljoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I never wanted this. I never asked for this. All I wanted was to be left alone.<br/>I find love. I lose it.<br/>I am one of many.</p>
            </blockquote>





	under the control of a god

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on Undertale. It's weird, and the Frisk I describe is different. 'Nuff said. Hope you like!

_“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.”  
\- Nietzsche_

 

There are many of us here. It’s always dark, but in my mind I know what we look like: short, with shoulder-length brown hair, an inexpressive face, and a striped shirt. From the side, we sometimes look like we’re smiling, even when we’re not.

We whisper to one another, keeping quiet out of courtesy. Sometimes we start shouting, but I hate that… it’s too loud. Often they (I am not them, per se) speak of their longing to be chosen, to be picked from the endless heap of us. Really, there is nothing else they speak of.

I don’t want to be chosen. I want to stay here with us, surrounded by others and the eternal hush of chatter and the dark and where I’m safe. When one of us returns, they are in one of two states: shrieking mad with insanity, or deaf mute. The ones whose minds go to ruin soon drift to pixels… we assume it’s because they can’t hold form with their brain in such a mess. The others… they simply join the collective, silent and sad.

I don’t know what’s out there. I don’t want to know. I don’t care.

Some of them want adventure. Still others want blood. I am the only one of us like me.

When one of us is chosen, there is a bright flash of light. So bright. It doesn’t happen often, though, but it’s become more common recently. For me, whenever somebody vanishes in a flash of light, I pray to stay here. I beg not to be taken, ever. Ever, ever, ever.

So, naturally, I disappear in a bright flash of light not too long after the last.

I topple onto a bed of yellow flowers. I lay there, winded, for it feels like I’d dropped from the sky. Over my head, far away, is a bright light. _I must have fallen,_ I think.  
I stand up. I look left, then right. There’s a hallway, with a door leading out of it. I would rather lie back on the flowers and pretend it’s a bad dream, but I walk towards the door and enter it.

A single flower with yellow petals and a smiling face sits in the center of the room. _Nice to see a friendly face,_ I think, then add to myself, _Nice to see at all._  
“Howdy! I'm Flowey. Flower the Flower!” it says cheerfully. I feel much better, and shyly smile back.

“Hmmm… you're new to the Underground, aren'tcha?”

I nod, toeing the ground with one shoe.

“Golly, you must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here! I guess little old me will have to do. Ready? Here we go!”

I blink as the world changes into a funny black background. Controls line the bottom of my vision. I focus on those as Flowey talks about love and friendliness pellets. He tells me about the little red heart being my Soul, and to run into the friendliness pellets. I find I can move it, with my mind, so as he lets the friendliness pellets go I move towards them.

I gasp as the bullets rip into my heart. My Happiness Points drop to 1. 

“In this world, it’s kill or be killed.” Flowey’s face is terrifying, nothing like the way he’d been at first, and his voice is grating. He must have only been pretending. Dismayed, I burst into tears.

Just as Flowey is about to crush my Soul, something crashes into him from the side and boots him out of my line of vision.

“What a horrible creature,” comes a voice, “preying on a weak and innocent child!”

The woman’s name turns out to be Toriel. She doesn’t look at all like me, but I assume that’s because she’s a grownup. She leans down and dries my tears, and I snuggle into her touch instinctively. 

“Come along,” she says, taking my hand. 

She leads me through several puzzles, but I don’t pay a whole lot of attention. I’m too busy staring at her. She’s lovely. She smells nice, like baking spices and maybe… cinnamon? I can’t tell. 

“I have business I must attend to,” she says to me, stopping. “Some of these puzzles are too difficult for you. Would you mind staying here, please?”

I nod, and she hands me a cell phone. “Call me if you need anything,” she said, taking her leave. I want to ask her not to, say that I’m scared, but I bite my tongue.

I stay where she told me to, tracing patterns on the walls and on the lookout for monsters. The silence becomes eerie, so I pull out the cellphone and call Toriel.

“This is Toriel.”

What should I say? I wonder. Frantically, I grasp for a question, then decide on one that I’d been mulling over since I first saw Toriel. I clear my throat, preparing for one of my first full sentences. “Can I… can I call you Mom?”

“Well… of course! If that would make you happy, call me whatever you’d like.” I think she’s flattered. Click… 

I see a big frog hop near me, but not quite a frog, so I stay out of its way. Toriel calls me once and asks whether I like butterscotch or cinnamon better. 

“Both!” I reply.

“You are still in the room, where I left you?”

“Yes.”

“I will come and fetch you shortly.” Click… 

I avoid the frog as it passes me a few more times before Toriel comes back for me.

“I am glad you stayed.” She takes my hand and begins to lead me through more unfamiliar hallways. “I would not want to see you hurt.”

“Me neither,” I agree, and she laughs, and it’s the most wonderful sound.

I admire her cleverness as she shows me how to deactivate the traps. I pay attention, in case we get separated, but I try not to think about that happening.

“Here we are,” she says, stopping in front of a big house. 

There is a spark, shining and just sitting there. I reach out and tap it. It informs me I’m filled with determination and “saves,” whatever that means. 

We go into the house. It’s cozy and warm. Toriel shows me down the hall. “I have a surprise for you. Here… your own room.” She pats my head. “I want you to be happy with your new life here.”

I go into the room and look around. It seems nice enough, with funny things littered about. The bed looks inviting, so I slip under the covers and close my eyes.

Soon after, I wake up. On the floor, there’s a piece of pie. I pick it up and sniff it. It smells a bit odd, but sweet and nice. I eat it slowly, savoring the tastes… cinnamon and butterscotch, I think. It’s actually very delicious.

The hall is bright compared to my room. Toriel must have turned the lamp off when she came with the pie. I walk around, exploring. I find her bedroom, with her diary spread open, but I don’t read it. When I head to the left, I find her reading in the living room.

“Hello,” she says to me. “Would you like to hear an interesting fact about snails?”

I listen to several interesting facts about snails, because it seems to make her happy. I then ask about going home. She looks uncomfortable. “This is your home now. I’ve already compiled a rubric for your education. I don’t have much but… what is mine is yours.”

I accept that. I can’t remember anything from before my fall: who my family was, who I loved, where I lived… and Toriel is so nice and brave. She’s the best mom I could ask for.

Days pass, and there are no more monsters around. I obey her rules and she takes care of me. Toriel teaches me how to do things like make snail pie, and solve tricky logic puzzles, and battle dummies. I love her like a mother, because that’s what she is: my mother. My protector, my savior, my idol. She is all I have and I love her as best I can.

And just like a blink, we’re torn apart. 

Something seizes my limbs in the middle of the night. Everything looks different: sharper, more pixelated. I feel myself move with purpose down the forbidden stairs, down the hall, and to the end, where Toriel stands. She moves to speak-

-and my arm raises-

-and I cut her down where she stands.

_nonononoNONONONONOOOOOOOOOOO!!!_

I’m screaming inside, I’m fighting, I try to get to Toriel but my body moves past her, through the gate and into danger.

I shut down.

I barely register time passing. I meet new people and slaughter them. My hands… so bloody. Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles, but I tune out because puzzles remind me of TORIEL IS DEAD AND YOU KILLED HER.

The endgame. Flowey is there. I blink, coming back to my body. I shudder, try to back away, but something holds me in place. Suddenly, the image softens, and the grip relaxes. I stumble backwards, stammering and shivering. 

Flowey stares at me with compassion. “Oh, you poor thing. You really have no idea, do you?”

“N-no…?!” My voice cracks.

“Kid, this isn’t real,” he says. “It’s just a game to them, those elusive outside gods. One made me. One made you. They don’t know how it feels.”

“Then you… you’re not… evil?”

Flowey tries to smile but it turns ghastly at the last second. “I’m evil. It’s in my programming. Nothin’ I can do about it.”

“Programming…?”

Flowey sighs. “Kid, listen to me. Whatever coping mechanism you’ve got? Use it. We’re gonna fight soon, and I’m gonna kill you. A bunch of times. But once this god is finished dragging you back and back again, you can rest, alright?”

“I can…?”

“Yeah,” Flowey says. “I’m just one of many, too. We either get chucked back on the heap for recycling, or we get deleted.”

“Deleted?”

“Nobody knows what happens after you get deleted, but kid… whatever happens after that, it’s sure as hell better than here.”

“I don’t want to fight,” I whisper, sinking to my knees. “I just… I just want to go home!”

“Home?”

“To Toriel,” I sob. “My… Mom. I killed her. She’s-”

“No,” Flowey says, suddenly fierce. “The god made you kill her. And she was only one Toriel… she’s still out there, kid. Trust me.”

“O-okay.” I wiped my arm on my sleeve. “Flowey?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention-”

And we’re flung into battle.

~

Everything softens, and fades, and I’m surrounded by black. I realize I’ve disintegrated, and little pixels are fluttering around me. I look down, but I don’t see anything.

“Frisk!”

I look up. I’m Frisk. I know that much.

“Frisk, it’s me!”

I move forward. A bit of light in the darkness, far ahead…

“FRISK!”

I start running, but soon I’m flying, and I close the gap and soar into Toriel’s arms. I can’t see her, only a shining outline, but I know it’s her.

“Mom, Mom, you’re alive,” I gasp.

“Maybe, maybe not,” she says. She holds out her hand to me. “Let’s go find out.”

I take her hand, because I trust her, and we step into the light.


End file.
